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Wedding Woes

bachelorette turning into a nightmare

CaliMel11CaliMel11 member
100 Love Its 100 Comments First Anniversary Name Dropper
edited March 2014 in Wedding Woes
One of my bridesmaids volunteered to throw me my bachelorette party! Great right?
Except that it's turning into a disaster.

She never got a list of people from me who I wanted invited, and instead tried doing it all on facebook. She is not facebook friends with a lot of the people so she ended up having to add me to the group in order to invite them.
I'm so stressed out about it because she apparently never set a budget up with people first. She asked me what I wanted to do, and I said that wine tasting in a limo would be fun. Except that she never got a headcount, a budget from people, or any ideas from my MOH or other bridesmaid about what they would suggest for me.
Instead she started texting me constantly asking me about all the planning options. Then when I tried telling her to please ask the people attending these questions, because I cannot answer for them, or to please ask the MOH or Bridesmaid, she wouldn't do it.

She booked everything and completely ignored any suggestions that anyone had made. She booked an expensive lunch when I already suggested a limo company that has a deli tray and breads in the limo so that we don't have to buy lunch. Then she insisted on dinner being planned. Like full on harrassed me about it constantly texting me for an hour last week all about it and then actually asked me if it was okay to bring her boyfriend and her children to the dinner. I said no that I did not think it was appropriate to have them there.

Now people are posting on the fb group asking for price totals and she is ignoring them. She backed out of dinner and isn't coming to it now.

I'm just super frustrated because I know I am not supposed to be involved, and tried to get her to stop asking me things, but she is planning this crazy thing that is not anything like what I mentioned "might be nice". I never said hey we have to do this! She could have easily asked other people for ideas, or asked me for some ideas that I had of things I would like to do.

I am grateful that someone is trying to plan something, but if it's so expensive that no one can afford to come, then I would rather not do that! I have expressed this to her many times and she just ignores me and keeps telling me that people can suck it up because it's "your day and they can just do what you want"
Which is completely NOT the attitude that I have about this all.

She put the deposit in on the limo already, even though there were no concrete numbers. Then she texted me and said that she has to raise the price per person, and that she's "already absorbing a lot of money in costs so she can't afford not to raise it"...uhh okay? Why is she telling me this? I don't know what in the world could possibly so expensive unless she is adding on all kinds of crazy options.

People are already revolting because she added on a lunch at a winery and it's an extra amount of money on top of the other expenses and she never presented it as a "hey maybe we could do this, who is interested?" it was more like a "hey I signed us up for this, so pick what you want and oh by the way you owe this extra amount now!"
One of the guests just ate there on her birthday and was trying nicely to tell her that it was not worth the money at all and that we could easily go somewhere else, or just eat the food provided by the limo company. But she refuses to listen to anyone about it.

I was crying yesterday because I'm so stressed out about this. For one thing, I'm not even supposed to be involved in planning, yet she will not leave me alone about it! Secondly, I already made it clear that I don't want people being charged an arm and a leg to hang out with me and she just keeps ignoring that. She already made it so expensive that 3 people dropped out. and I think more are going to.
I just don't understand why something that is not that difficult to plan has turned into a total nightmare. She also was trying to switch the date after she already made it on one day, to another, because she had a work conference the day before. This was after guests had already RSVPd, and people had asked for the time off from work.

I just wish I could cancel the whole thing because I feel awful about how it has turned out.

At this point I feel like she is planning some dream bachelorette party for herself or what she "thinks one should be" rather than what I would actually want.

Re: bachelorette turning into a nightmare

  • I feel for you, that sounds awful! Doesn't sound like there are firm plans locked in? Especially if she has backed out. If it has gotten that out of hand, then perhaps cancelling would be the best way to salvage the situation.
  • I'm with Varuna. If she backed out, the party's cancelled. Make that announcement in the FB group and then turn off notifications.

    If the reservations are in her name, it's on her to cancel them.
    Anniversary

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    I'm gonna go with 'not my circus, not my monkeys.'
  • I had problems like this (though certainly not so bad as this) before my first wedding.  I lost a bridesmaid due to a ridiculous falling out (we've since made it up and are closer than ever - thank goddess - she's my best friend) and my FI decided to go ahead and ASK someone to be a bridesmaid in her place- we'll call her S.  OMG I was mortified that he did this.  But she accepted and seemed to want to do this and was handed to me as a Fait Accompli.  I wound up paying for her flight to the wedding, her entire outfit and a hotel room for her and her boyfriend because I felt so weird about her being asked so late to step into the game, behind my back.  She was lovely and helpful and I was grateful but I barely knew this girl.  She was excited to plan a bach party for me but she ran up against alot of trouble from another bridesmaid, who we shall call H. 

    Now originally this other bridesmaid, H, had been halfheartedly planning a bach party but I kept getting complaints from other bridesmaids that she was dithering and mithering much like you experienced.  She'd have ideas that were too expensive, impractical, etc., she couldn't get her act together to commit or actually plan anything even though SHE insisted she was the big party girl and this was going to be HER JOB.  I tried SOOO hard to stay out of it but once the "new" bridesmaid got added it became an all-out war between these two.  And WORST of all S would go straight to my FI whenever she'd knock heads with H.  Then he would come to me and tell ME to get my friend, H, under control because the bridesmaid HE ADDED to my wedding party wasn't getting the respect she deserved. 

    I was young, inexperienced and clueless about how to deal with this drama.  So I basically did nothing about it.  It escalated, my FI and I had a huge fight - the one and only time I ever screamed at him and slammed a door - I grew up in a house where you didn't fight, you simmered slowly instead for a long time.  It was the biggest stressor in my entire wedding and I felt powerless to handle it.

    Eventually bach night came and H made a big point of having another event she HAD to go to for most of the evening (tickets she bought to a sushi restaurant party right after S started seriously planning the bach party - it was strangely convenient how the timing went down) but we were "allowed" to drop by the restaurant near the end of our pubcrawl and pick her up for one more stop before we all headed back to the hotel room S had rented for a sleepover. 

    It was an awkward and uncomfortable night.  I wish somehow I could have stopped the trainwreck that was the entire incident but I was determined to stay as far away from the fighting as I could.  Not sure how else I could have handled it.
  • To make things even worse, it was just brought to my attention that the host is actually charging everyone for their own party favors.
    Who does that?
    I was going to make favors as a gift to everyone for attending, and unbeknownst to me, hidden in the list of expenses for the day are "favors"
    Uhh what?
    They are supposed to be a gift from the host to the party goers in my world! Not some tacked on expense. That would be like charging people admission to a childrens birthday party to pay for favor bags.
  • Again, cancel this nonsense.  For whatever reason (motive simply doesn't matter), her behavior is entirely inappropriate.  You know it, the guests know it, we all know it...stop enabling it.  Cancel it and take a load off.  
  • VarunaTT said:
    Okay, I have to be honest.  I stopped at this:  "She backed out of dinner and isn't coming to it now".

    Shit's done.  Host doesn't back out on their own party and expect it to keep going.

    I'd call her and tell her this nonsense is finished.  Then, at this point, I'd post in that FB group..."Sorry to announce, but the party is canceled" and stop notifications on the post so you don't have to see it (I don't think you can leave w/out your posts deleting) and just let it go,  I'd call the places you know about and cancel reservations.  She can call and get her monies back.

    Then, leave the ball in her court re: still being a bridesmaid.


    This. Cancel it and move on. Hopefully you're not too bummed about your bach party going to shit, but I personally would rather not have a party at all then trying to do damage control on a poorly planned one.
  • Please, for the sake of your other friendships, take your friend aside and tell her that while you appreciate that she wanted to host this party, you are not comfortable with what she is doing and will no longer be accepting the party from her.  Tell your other friends that it is cancelled, do not wait on her, and tell them all to ignore any further requests from her.

    I am a bridesmaid in this position, and the bride is currently turning into the most greedy, inconsiderate person and it has caused me to think about stepping down and distancing myself from her as much as possible. 
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